"One Lost Sheep"

The texts for this sermon are 1 Timothy 1:12-17 and Luke 15:1-10.

One Lost Sheep

Our scriptures often use images of sheep and shepherds when talking about the relationship between God and God’s people.  It’s one of the most commonly used images when talking about Christianity, especially in terms of comfort and knowing the way in which God cares for us.  I’d guess that nearly all of us have heard, or even have memorized, the 23rd Psalm to the point that the moment we hear “The Lord is My Shepherd,” our ears perk up.  We know the images of the gentle shepherd who leads his flock beside still waters, who takes them to green fields where they can eat their fill, who protects them against the wolf and the lion.  We hear Jesus call himself the “Good Shepherd” in the Gospel of John, and say that he lays his life down for his sheep, that he knows his flock by name and cares for each one individually.  As the resurrected Christ encounters Peter on the shore of the beach, eats breakfast with him, and asks Peter if Peter loves him, Jesus instructs Peter to feed and tend his sheep and lambs.

The images are all familiar to us - we are the sheep, and God is the shepherd.  Even the term pastor comes from that very shepherding language.  Pastor is the Latin word for Shepherd.  But I wonder if we’ve ever taken the time to really stop and think about that analogy and what it says, what it means when we talk about ourselves as sheep. I don’t know if anyone here today raises sheep, or perhaps you have neighbors who do.  Ask them about it sometime - or look to your own experiences for a second.  We really insult ourselves when we call ourselves sheep, don’t we?  Sheep can really seem dumb a lot of the time - they startle easily and find comfort in their flock, clumping together by instinct for their own protection.  If there’s a hole, they’re sure to fall into it.  If there’s something to knock over, they’ll manage to do it.  The more a herd gets startled, the harder they try to find comfort, the tighter they bunch together and the more damage they can do.  They can be stubborn animals, as anyone can tell you who has happened to be driving down the road and had to come skidding to a halt as they discover a herd of sheep who have knocked down a fence and wandered as a group into oncoming traffic.  Honk at them all you want - they’re not going anywhere.  Try to get out and herd them yourself and you’ll likely end up filthy, tired and still stuck in the road because they don’t know you, so they see you as a predator.  And that’s a herd mentality - a sheep is even worse when it manages to wander off by itself.  A sheep will panic when it’s alone and startled.  It will run far and wide looking for its flock, only getting itself further lost.  If it falls in a hole or gets stuck somewhere, the panic only gets worse and a sheep can injure itself or even scare itself to death.

And yet, here we are, content to call ourselves God’s sheep, happy to think of God as our loving shepherd.  We find so much comfort in that image of a herd of sheep, spread out, serenely grazing on green grass next to a babbling brook while our wonderful shepherd watches us from nearby, playing a tune on his pipes and ever watching for dangers.  You’d think we’d be a little less inclined to call ourselves stubborn and stupid, that we’d resist being described as groups of people so easily led any which way by the whim of our crowd.  Maybe it’s time to re-think all this sheep and shepherd symbolism, to find something that resonates better and doesn’t involve us putting ourselves down so much.

But then I look at the selections we’ve read today and I think: maybe there is still something to be said about this image.  Maybe there’s even a reason that this image is so prevalent throughout our Scriptures.  If we shy away from the thought of a shepherd God, aren’t we also affirming it as we huddle together in our group, shaking our heads and baaa’ing our denials together, consoling one another that we’re no-o-o-o-o-t like that, we’d ne-e-e-e-ver be like that, that we’re be-e-e-e-e-eter than sheep?  That’s exactly what the Pharisees and the scribes sound like in Luke’s Gospel as they stand and grumble about the fact that Jesus is preaching to the tax collectors and sinners in the crowd who have come to listen to him.  We can see them standing there, shaking their heads, wondering at the fact that Jesus spends so much of his time with these sinners.  Ba-a-a-a-a-a....

The story that Jesus tells gives us a different appreciation for what it means to be a sheep - not because of anything that sheep represent, but because of who our shepherd is.  Jesus tells these parables, speaking of things that are lost - things that we ourselves might be quick to dismiss, just as the Pharisees had dismissed the people they classified as sinners beyond repair.  After all, in a handful of ten silver coins, or as we might see it today, ten dollars in your pocket, what’s the big deal about losing just one of them?  Or in a group of 100 sheep, what’s the loss of just one sheep out of that group?  Wolves happen from time to time.  Sheep wander off.  Sure, we might look for them, but is it something we’ll go to such great lengths to do?  It’s a buck.  It’s one lost sheep.  How many people do you know who turn their entire house upside down, sweep out every nook and cranny, turn out the cushions on the couch and sweep underneath the fridge, just to find a dollar?  What sense does it make to leave the rest of a herd of sheep, abandoning them in the wilderness by themselves, while you go out and look for just one who wanders off?

It doesn’t make sense to us... but then again, we’re not the shepherd.  We’re not the ones with the coins.  And thank God we’re not - because if it were left to the flock of sheep to worry about the one that wandered away, there’d be a lot more sheep stuck in ditches.  But the shepherd knows his sheep - he calls them each by name as he counts and counts, making sure that each one is cared for and protected.  And so when one goes missing or wanders off, the shepherd knows - not just by a missing tally on a clipboard, but to the individual sheep, which one isn’t there.  And that’s why the shepherd goes off, leaving the other 99 to themselves for the moment.  The shepherd knows that those 99 together are safer than that one who is alone and scared, possibly in a ditch somewhere with a broken leg, crying for help.  And so the shepherd goes off after Flopsy, after Woolemina, after Snowdrop, looking everywhere he can to find that one lost sheep.  He goes off after Peter, after Matthew, after Mary and Paul, after Zacchaeus and Lazarus, seeking them out and calling them back away from their nets, from their trees and from the middle of the road, from the ditches they’ve fallen into and the holes they’ve become stuck in.  He calls them each by name and leads them home, where he welcomes them with joy and celebration.

It’s no wonder that Paul expresses his wonder at this very fact in his letter to Timothy - Paul, who considered himself perhaps the “foremost” of sinners, who persecuted and murdered the followers of Jesus Christ, had been called out specifically by Christ, called out by name and made through Christ into one of the greatest theologians and apostles the church has ever known.  This very same Paul, who might as well have been counted as a goat among sheep, who people doubted could ever be forgiven for the things he’d done, was the one that Christ chose to raise up, to love, and to nurture the church.

That’s the kind of shepherd we follow - stubborn sheep that we are, prone to wandering, to panicking and running away, our shepherd is faithful and caring.  We wander off and he brings us back, tirelessly carrying us in his arms each time and reminding us at every step that he loves us.  That’s the kind of shepherd we follow.  And as I remember that, I’m proud to call myself a sheep.  To God be the glory.  Amen.